Evaporation problem?

[DogFlynnHead]

Start out with 4.5 gal in brewpot. At the end of the boil end up with 4 gal. Transfering all the liquid, minus the hop pellet sludge at bottom of brewpot into the fermentor. End up with 3.25 gal and recie calls for cool top up water to 5 gal. This is an extract recipe with steeped grains. My OG should be 1.075 but I ended up with 1.052. Recipe calls for brown sugar addition, is it ok to double that sugar? I mixed wort and water very well and don't think I had a diluted sample. Thanks for you HELP!

 

[EvilTOJ]

OK whoa whoa slow down there. You're fine. There's no problems at all. You're doing everything OK. Don't add any more brown sugar, it'll just taste like carmelized ass. As long as you added the top up water to make 5 gallons your recipe is fine.

 

[DogFlynnHead]

Not sure if anybody can calculate estimated OG, but the recipe called for 8lbs of liquid malt extract and 1lb of steeped crystal crushed specialty grain. 2 days into fermentation it calls for 1/2lb of brown sugar.

 

[Grinder12000]

Are you SURE your OG was 1.052? Did you add the water and mix VERY VERY well before you took the reading? You said this - sorry.

It's not you - it's the extract I believe.

My gut feeling is you OG was right on and your measuring was off because you took the test from a layer with more water then wort. But - who knows for sure.

rereading your post

Hmmm - 8 lb would be 1.057 add 1lb Crystal 60L you get 1.062 - 1/2lb of brown suger gives you 1.067 - no way will you get 1.075.

 

[shortyjacobs]

Are you SURE your OG was 1.052? Did you add the water and mix VERY VERY well before you took the reading? You said this - sorry.

It's not you - it's the extract I believe.

My gut feeling is you OG was right on and your measuring was off because you took the test from a layer with more water then wort. But - who knows for sure.

rereading your post

Hmmm - 8 lb would be 1.057 add 1lb Crystal 60L you get 1.062 - 1/2lb of brown suger gives you 1.067 - no way will you get 1.075.

Yeah, beersmith says 1.058 after the crystal add, and 1.063 after the sugar, (crystal isn't mashed, so does that mean you get less sugar out of it by steeping? (edit, yeah, beersmith gives one point per lb/5gal for crystal steeped, and 5 pts ler lb/5gal for crystal mashed...I learned something new!))

It's pretty much impossible to screw up extract unless you burnt a lot of the Liquid extract onto the bottom of the pot, (did you?).....I vote for not calibrated hydrometer, you not correcting for the hydrometer reading at 60, or something like that....

But if you confirm the hydrometer is correct, you could always boil a little water, stir in a lb or 3 of DME, and dump that in.....

 

[dontman]

I mixed wort and water very well and don't think I had a diluted sample.

Three possibilities here. You have more than 5 gallons or your wort is not well mixed or you misread the hydrometer. Unless you added water to total more than 5 gallons the problem is not with the beer.

When doing extract batches it is not necessary to take an og reading because the og is a fixed level based on the amount of fermentables you add. It is much more accurate and reliable to figure the og using the "Potential SG" of the ingredients.

The numbers Grinder quoted are right.

Stick with the recipe.